This year's exhibitions of the Modern Art Gallery - László Vass Collection will also present important masters of the art of Szentendre. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Jenő Barcsay.
He began his studies in the autumn of 1921 at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, first in the class of János Vaszary, later under Béla Rudnay. Following the Second World War, between 1945 and 1948, he became a member of the European School artists’ group. A decisive turning point in his life came in 1945, when he was appointed professor of anatomy and theoretical drawing at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. He taught numerous generations of artists at the Budapest academy until his retirement in 1975.
His anatomy book, published in 1953 and known as Barcsay’s Anatomy, became an international reference work and was translated into some 15 languages. In 1964, he was awarded the title of Merited Artist. That same summer, he was a featured exhibitor in the Hungarian Pavilion at the 32nd Venice Biennale. The final major exhibition of the elderly artist’s life opened in September 1982 at the Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle) in Budapest. The display of geometrically abstract, monochromatic works came as a great surprise to contemporary art critics.
László Vass was among the first to recognise the significance of the works from this late period. The art collector maintained a close friendship and ongoing professional relationship with Jenő Barcsay. With the painter’s guidance, Barcsay played an important role in the development of Vass’s collecting practice, despite the latter’s original profession as a shoemaker.
Within the history of the Modern Gallery – Vass Collection, Barcsay’s late minimalist works serve as the conceptual starting point, and it is a deliberate curatorial decision that the permanent exhibition opens with these pieces. The newest temporary selection drawn from the collection builds upon these works, and also evokes the art of Pál Deim, a student of Barcsay. The Szentendre-born artist's versatile oeuvre includes paintings, sculptures, and graphic works. His unique style within geometric, non-figurative art is characterised by a conscious use of individually developed forms. He created an artistic language shaped by the influence of both Lajos Vajda’s constructivist-surrealist approach and Jenő Barcsay’s constructive painting.
Jenő Barcsay taught anatomy to Pál Deim at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. In later years, their master-student relationship evolved into a friendship in Szentendre. Barcsay's influence was not only professional; their close bond was recalled by Deim in the following way:
“Human beings are limited in space and time, confined within narrow boundaries, yet capable of gradually and slowly expanding these limits. Within this modest scope, we must arrange our domains of space and time in such a way that there are always small windows through which the light of a world beyond the senses can enter. This is what enables creation—and what gives creation its eternity. For me, aligning with the infinite means Jenő Barcsay, Uncle Jenő, the Master.”
